Our Bali Trip:
OK here goes the first instalment, which only covers our first few days in Ubud - later we went to Permuteran, then Seminyak. It's a bit long but I think details are what brings travel to life. Skip if you don't want the description...
We left home about midday on Sunday 18th March and got to the International Terminal from our home in less than two hours so that was good. On the downside it was 2pm and our plane wasn't due to leave till 6pm - the new rules are to check in 3 hours before takeoff. Air travel is really getting tedious, especially with young children. Our two year old daughter, Soph, was fascinated by watching the planes on the tarmac. She was telling the planes to move and was very put out that they took no notice of her.
We checked in, bought magazines, hung around etc and had a few nice conversations with people in the departure lounge including an Australian bloke with his American fiancee who was saying that her brother was a typical American, never left the continental US and never intended to. 'I get National Geographic Channel' he said. 'Why do I need to travel?'
Our flight on Jetstar was pleasant even though we've heard the horror stories. The flight attendants were really nice, the leather seats were comfortable and our seven year old son, Sam, was thrilled because we hired a video on demand player for him and he got to watch Night at the Museum another couple of times.
We cleared immigration and customs easily - the immigration official set the tone of the Balinese being besotted with Soph - he said to my husband 'You and your beautiful daughter may go now.' This was only our second trip but as we walked out of the terminal we felt so at home and comfortable, the lovely slightly sweet smoky smell, the dim light, the warm humid air, it all felt so familiar. Bali has such distinctive smells, all of them pleasant, incense and smoke from offerings, warm growing things, frangipani...
Our driver was waiting. He said he'd been worried about being late for us as he'd had to drive down from our hotel in Ubud and he'd been held up for at least an hour by the Ogoh-Ogoh parades. But as we drove up to Ubud the streets were empty and dark - everyone had gone home. A few Ogoh-Ogoh, probably some of the best ones, had escaped being burned and loomed up at us from the darkened sides of the road. This is so typical of Bali, where even the late night drive from the airport to the hotel is fascinating and such an insight into the rich culture. The Ogoh-Ogoh we saw were stunning; some even had LED lights sparkling in their crowns and headdresses. We were told a single Ogoh-Ogoh could cost up to 12 Million Rupiah (about 2000 Aust dollars). The same amount of money would buy a Balinese a motorbike and generally takes them a few years to pay off.
Soph was absolutely amazed and a little frightened by the Ogoh-Ogoh but fascination won out and for the rest of the trip she kept saying 'I want to see monsters. Where are the monsters. More monsters, please.' They were one of the highlights of her trip.
We arrived at Tegal Sari sometime after eleven. I can only say that all the great reports about this hotel are true. It's gorgeous, the rooms are lovely and the staff are delightful. Since I've been back I notice that Trip Advisor rates TS third of all hotels in Bali - not bad when you're competing with Four Seasons etc! We had a beautiful new room looking straight onto the rice paddy. Being the end of the wet season, the rice was brilliant emerald green and alive with small birds, some them with calls that sounded like chimes.
We had plenty of time to appreciate the hotel as the following day was Nyepi Day. We loved the chance to rest after our trip. Also it was so quiet, no traffic around the hotel, no pressure to do anything...we spent a lot of time in the pool with the kids and had a chance to talk to the other guests.
The next morning we went with a driver from the hotel to see a Barong and Kris dance in a nearby village. Soph loved it - monsters dancing, monsters dancing, she cried with great enthusiasm but she was a bit worried when the Rangda character reappeared in a pig costume and was beaten on his (padded) abdomen and mock-stabbed. Glimpses of a brutal, more animistic past aren't far away - I wasn't surprised when a Balinese man told us the dances were more authentic in the temple full moon ceremonies - where of course they kill a real pig - no shamming.
I wanted to get a silver ring made so our driver took us to a big silver and goldsmiths in Celuk called Sari Karya. We were taken out to the workshop and shown how they get the silver in small blocks and then beat it into wire and snip the wire into little silver beads or work it into rings and filigree and how they polish it and wash it in an acid water made with tamarind pulp. Fascinating. The silver was beautiful and not expensive so we bought some and agreed on a design for my ring, to be picked up a few days later on our way back down south. Our driver was a little surprised, I think, as he expected that we would look around at a few shops and bargain, as most people do, but the work at Sari Karya was good and the prices seemed reasonable and it's just too hard to do the big comparison shop with a two-year old in tow!
We decided to have lunch at Indus, because of its spectacular views and we weren't disappointed. The food was delicious - I had scallops and Sam had samosas and Jules had Nasi Campur. We spent the afternoon in the pool with the kids and also having Balinese massages in the Bale next to the pool (75,000 rp for an hour and they were very good) and then, bliss, we had babysitting that night and went out to the best restaurant in Ubud, probably in all of Indonesia, and one of the best in the Southern Hemisphere, Mozaic.
Mozaic is set in a garden and serves a seven-course degustation menu. Jules also had the wines all matched to go with his courses. It's not cheap but it is fabulous. These were some of the dishes we had: Crispy seared duck foie gras with rhubarb braised in port wine reduction; seasonal yellow watermelon sorbet with parsley coconut gelee and black rice crust, Valrhona Jivara chocolate mousse with fresh lime leaf gelee, cocoa crust and roasted peaches in a jasmine balsamic reduction, salad of salt-cured duck breast, foie gras terrine, green beans and pomelo in walnut-mustard dressing etc etc.
The cocktails were superb but very hard to describe, made with Kintamani volcano grapes and other exotic ingredients and not tasting quite like anything else I've had.
The next morning we decided we were keen to have a look along Monkey Forest Road (I wasn't game to take the kids to the Monkey Forest itself). The driver dropped us at Tutmak café as we said we wanted coffee. It was a good place to watch the street and the people on it. The kind of detail that always strikes me in Bali: at Tutmak each stair step was outlined in fresh frangipani petals.
When we left Tutmak we walked round the corner into Monkey Forest Road and started down the street, Jules carrying Soph, of course. One of the first shops to waylay us was a bead shop. They're all the rage in Bali and some of the stuff is beautiful - ropes and ropes of moonstones, pink quartz, blue sodalite, some green stone, coral, fancy plastic, too many things to list. Sophie raced around the store and was cheeky. Then we found a stunning shop called Pithecanthropus which specialised in fine clothing, hand printed sarongs in traditional designs, beautiful t-shirts etc. The clothes were expensive but really beautiful quality. Sam scandalised the shop assistants by choosing a woman's shirt but it does look lovely on him. I liked the stylised batik patterns they had harking back to the days of Dutch colonialism - steam ships, trains and so on. They also had gorgeous Javanese puppets and we bought one as well as some clothing. Next door was Lamak and we had a delicious lunch there - and that was as far as we got down Monkey Forest Road.
Lamak was designed by one of Bali's most famous architects, the Australian Made Wijaya, who also designed Warung Enak, which looms right over the back of Tegal Sari. Lamak is really worth a visit - the food and cocktails are delicious and it's not expensive - not at all in the Mozaic league, the staff were pleasant and interesting to talk to and the restaurant itself has such an intriguing design. For example the toilet cubicle doors have big red and green lights on the doors, like traffic lights, that switch on according to whether they're vacant or not.
That evening more babysitting for the kids - luckily they loved the babysitter and were very happy to stay with her. We went out to see a Wayang Kulit play at Oka Kartini. The wayang holds a powerful place in Indonesian culture though I think it's now losing out to tv. Traditionally some of the plays would run right through the night in the villages and the puppet master was meant to be a master of social commentary. That is, though the framework stories are mostly derived from the Ramayana and the Mahabarata, there are many 'low' comedy characters and they comment constantly on current politics and society. The wayang master would be expected to know all the gossip in the village and weave it into the shows, to the delight and maybe consternation of the audience.
Being Bali, of course there's always a spiritual dimension - for instance there's a loud knocking at the beginning of show - it's the puppet master 'waking' the puppets up, getting the spirits to enter them for the show. The puppet master carves his own puppets, always, we were told. Before the show we wandered around the gallery near where the show was to be held and one of the assistant puppeteers talked to us a lot about the puppets and the characters. He was keen to sell us some puppets but it was also just interesting to hear him speak about his craft. We did end up buying a very beautiful green Rama. No doubt we could have bought a cheaper Wayang figure somewhere else but I think sometimes it's worth paying more to get a more exquisitely crafted piece.
The princely characters in the Wayang speak in Kawi, the ancient language of Bali which few would now understand, so it has to be translated, and the vulgar characters speak in modern day Balinese. At the performance we saw, the puppet master threw in a few words of English every now and again for our benefit. As befitted the end of the rainy season, a spectacular thunder-and-lightning storm reverberated and flashed around us as we watched. I felt closer to the real Indonesia watching the wayang in a rainy season storm under a tin roof on plastic chairs than I ever had before.
Back at Tegal Sari it was still raining and the beautiful singing we'd heard since the previous night was still going - it was the birthday of an important local temple and the priests were singing for hours on end for several nights in a row. It was wonderful and we could hear it really well.
I would definitely travel near the end of the rainy season again - the days were mostly dry and sunny but cooler than the dry season and watching the lightning flash over the rice fields and listening to the thunder and rain pouring down - it's so dramatic and beautiful.